


HaLlOwEeN :o) – THE OPTIONAL SEQUEL.  OR SOMETHING.

by thatsrightdollface



Series: Thinking about that Mysterious Earth C! [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Becoming Friends Again, Canon-Typical Violence, Earth C, Gen, Halloween, I won't say there's not angst here, I'm Sorry, M/M, but the ending should be happy, i had a lot of fun writing this, i think it's happy, in which Gamzee goes to a Halloween party, it's chapters though because I got kind of carried away, mspaofficial snapchat, post-epilogue, snapchat updates, so many headcanons, there's also cake, trying to heal old wounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-09-30 06:54:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10156745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: -- Gamzee receives a mysterious phone call on Halloween night.  Caliborn despises his ringtone, and no one is surprised.-- Karkat has a proposition.  He's grumpy about it, or maybe just nervous.-- This is a sea of headcanons.  So many attempts at character analysis/cultural analysis/every kind of analysis.  Maybe too many?-- Also, this is both based off the series of Halloween-ish updates released on the MSPAOfficial snapchat AND branching off of that other story just called "HaLlOwEeN :o)" I wrote attempting to analyze the one Halloween picture with Gamzee in it.  That one can exist all alone, or have an optimistic sequel friend backing it up and giving it a happier ending.  Idk.  ~Choose your own Gamzee fanfiction adventure...????~





	1. PiCkInG uP wHeRe We LeFt oFf…

**Author's Note:**

> If you read this, I hope you like it. It's shameless character analysis babbling but... I did try my best. I could well have gotten stuff wrong, and if so -- sorry!!! Somebody asked if I'd ever considered writing a happier ending for the other story. I thought about it, and decided it sounded like a fun thing to actually do. 
> 
> There are lots of ways we could probably get to what I would consider a happy ending from the snapchat Halloween picture. This is just one of them.

The grey rock where Gamzee Makara and Caliborn spent their nights – including the human festival of Halloween night, which it happened to still motherfucking be, you know – was grim and cold and so near silent.  Except for the pair of them, just then, and their whimsical festive shenanigans.  Gamzee had been right about what it would be like, wrapped up in a Caliborn costume hood.  Stuffy as fuck…  Paint dripping in his motherfucking eyes now and then….  Sweet ass bow tie.   The works.  Their grey rock waited all around them, mostly empty dust except for their little shelters, stuffed full of candy, raw meat and weaponry.  Earth C, freshly hatched and spinning with life, dizzy with so many ideas and countries and species, could just be seen over the horizon.  Other, less murder-y and cackling Halloween parties were happening down there.  Gamzee’d just gotten all bummed out thinking about it and messaging Jake English not too motherfucking long ago.

He’d stopped paying attention to the “ping” of incoming friend-post alerts by that point, though.  Gamzee couldn’t look at _all_ the pictures of mysterious sprites that may or may not be Tavros warped beyond his memory, combined with something he just didn’t know.  Probably no one had the emotional capacity to look at _all_ the pictures.  Tavros, who Gamzee had last seen dead as Alternia… Now looking half like a stranger and hanging out with a human-cat hybrid who was wearing a very fashionable pumpkin hat??? 

Looked fun, Gamzee imagined.  Looked far, far away, like Earth C itself.   

Caliborn was enthusiastically pantomiming Jake English’s death at his own hand – Gamzee’s, kinda, as Gamzee was the one in the Caliborn costume and limply holding on to a machine gun – when a ringtone went off that neither of them had heard in a good long while.  It had a lot of chimes in it, and a beat meant for holy, worshipful rhymes.  From a different time in Gamzee’s life, really.

Caliborn didn’t stop wheezing out declarations of Jake’s surrender, not until Gamzee said, “hE’s NoT gOnNa StOp CaLlInG uNtIl I aNsWeR, bRo.  SoRrY.  tHaT’s HoW sHiT uSeD tO gO dOwN aNyWaY, wHeN hE aCtUaLlY wAnTeD tO tAlK oUtLoUd To A mOtHeRfUcKeR.”

“WHO.  COULD HAVE INFLICTED THAT MISERABLE SONG.  ON US INNOCENT VICTIMS?” Caliborn demanded, tapping his golden foot on the rocks.  He liked the _smash_ of it, he’d said.  It made smashing sounds a lot more effectively than his other, lighter foot.  “HE SOUNDS LIKE.  SOME KIND OF INSENSITIVE BASTARD.  AND THAT IS COMING FROM ME.  WITH ALL MY MERRY JIGS THAT ONLY HAPPEN.  WHEN PEOPLE FUCKING DIE.” 

“NaH, nOt ReAlLy,” Gamzee said, looking down at the phone, at the glowering icon, at the nostalgic username.  “We WeRe BeSt MoThErFuCkInG fRiEnDs BeForE wE aLl GoT oN tO pLaYiNg ThE wHoLe SgRuB tHiNg.  At LeAsT i ThOuGhT sO.”

“YOU THINK A LOT OF THINGS.  LIKE THAT MY SISTER ISN’T THE WORST CREATURE ALIVE.  IN THIS AND EVERY OTHER POSSIBLE SHITTY DIMENSION.  AND THAT GRUBSAUCE ACTUALLY TASTES GOOD.  AND NOT LIKE BUG CRAP.”

“iT dOeS tAsTe GoOd, MaN,” Gamzee said.  “AnD yOu KnOw I cOuLdN’t HaTe CaLlIoPe.”

Caliborn definitely said something back to that – he most definitely said a lot of motherfucking things back to that, though even if he decided to go grab a spare machine gun and shoot Gamzee full of bubbling grape soda holes again they both knew it wouldn’t actually kill him or anything.  Gamzee would pick out the bullets and bonus splintered metal scraps, hissing profanity and thinking about lullabies he half-remembered from nights sitting in the sand staring up, up, up at his Lusus getting ready to drift away into the deep.  And then he’d be all good, just chilling with holes going all the way through him until they healed up.  No big deal, except for the pain.  Gamzee had a lot of experience smiling through pain.

So Caliborn said his things, but Gamzee didn’t hear them.  He picked up Karkat’s call. 

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING DRESSED AS THAT SEXIST, IGNORANT ASSHAT?  I DON’T EVEN GET WHY YOU’RE STILL HANGING OUT WITH CALIBORN.”

It was something, being yelled at by Karkat again.  His voice was significantly less gibbering and screechy than Caliborn’s, for sure – it could’ve been motherfucking sweet, if he didn’t get it scratchy on purpose picking all his fights and shit.  It was deeper now than Gamzee remembered.  A little mellower, even.  He’d have to start imagining it _not_ in all caps, if he got Karkat going on something that didn’t piss him the fuck off like Gamzee’s own motherfucking self. 

“wHaT’s ‘SeXiSt’ ExAcTlY, wItH wHaT’s AlL hApPeNiNg NoW, bRo?” Gamzee asked.  Alternia had been what humans apparently called a “Matriarchy” – Rose had told Gamzee about that, one time when they were messaging and she decided to “psychologically analyze” some cultural misunderstandings.  That meant there were empresses, where on earth there’d been a lot of emperors, or something, and far too many of them pretty shitty.  Gender in all its spectrums and complexity was a big deal on earth, Gamzee knew, but it was still kind of confusing and weird to think about a world where shit like that somehow dictated so much of a human’s life.  Apparently on earth, some humans gave birth instead of a Mother Grub laying a bunch of wigglers with all kinds of DNA mashed inside.  Some people even thought gender had a hand in who all you were allowed to be flushed for.  Boggled a motherfucker’s mind. 

Alternia had its problems – like flooding people’s planets, for instance, or the systematic culling of motherfuckers that didn’t deserve any of that noise…  But a girl or a boy seadweller could captain a pirate ship just fine and steal all the treasures, all of them.  A girl or a boy Subjugglator would bring the mirthful wrath just the motherfucking same.  Rose said that was probably why Gamzee’s words like “motherfucker” and “bitchtits” sounded different to a human than a troll – trolls didn’t have “mothers” the way humans did, and the messiahs alone knew how different “fucking” actually was.     

“OH SHUT UP,” said Karkat. 

“YoU gOt It,” said Gamzee.  And then there was a big, awkward silence, the kind that meant Karkat was thinking.  Gamzee shuffled his mirthfully curled jester shoes against the dust.                 

“YOU KNOW WHAT?” Karkat said, after he was good and done.  He still didn’t sound really sure about what he was saying, but maybe something in his voice softened.  It was hard to say, given that it had been years since Gamzee had heard him speaking softly.  “THIS PARTY IS LAME, EVERYBODY’S GOING ON ABOUT FUCKING INSIDE JOKES, SOME OF WHICH I BARELY UNDERSTAND, AND DAVE JUST WENT OFF WITH HIS ‘BRO’ TO DO SOME IRONIC GRAFITTI SOMEWHERE.  DO YOU WANT TO COME DOWN HERE FOR LIKE AN HOUR?  AND HELP US GET RID OF ARADIA’S ENORMOUS HUMAN CORPSE PARTY CAKE?  CAKE IS BASICALLY PIE.  OR SOMETHING.”  Another pause, shorter this time.  “YOU STILL LIKE PIE, DON’T YOU?”  

“MaYbE cAkE aNd PiE aRe MoThErFuCkInG dAnCeStOrS,” Gamzee said.  His voice was very small.  He brushed a few bouncy dark curls out of his eyes, folding them back under the enormous Caliborn hood.  “i’Ll CoMe.  MiGhT tAkE mE a WhIlE, bUt I’lL cOmE.” 

“GOOD, BECAUSE A SHIP IS ALMOST TO YOUR SHITTY GREY ROCK TO PICK YOU UP.  DON’T BRING CALIBORN.”


	2. EaRtH c, MoThErFuCkErS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, first off, I'm sorry this chapter is so long... And angsty, in patches. :P I wanted to establish some stuff that's important in the final chapter, and I really love going on and on about Gamzee theories and analyses. It's a weakness. Ahaha. I hope the chapter doesn't disappoint anybody. 
> 
> Also, yeah... It was a little sad to me that all the dancestor ghosts would disappear, sacrificed to the Game. So I decided to do a thing, here. Everybody gets to have a home!! Idk if this is true in canon or not... It probably isn't. But I like to think about it~
> 
> If I got any timeline/canon details wrong, I'm really really sorry about that, too. Thanks for reading!!! I hope you like it!

Gamzee had been to Earth C, of course, when it was new-formed and his fridge prison had been part of the cargo his friends brought in from the mysteries between worlds.  The planet had been young, when Gamzee said his motherfucking hellos to it – chess people had been busy gaping at their brand new gods, a fresh sky all staring and enormous above them.  Karkat and Dave had whispered furtively, arms brushing in a way that was definitely intended to look casual.  Their hands were still a little shaky from that whole _“Finally finishing the game and walking through the goddamn glowy door of victory”_ business.  Gamzee’s vision had been blurry and his skin all bruised from being thwacked around in his fridge during the epic showdown battle – that shit had been _motherfucking terrifying_.  His face was caked with purple tearstains afterwards, hardened into something kinda like a film of old Jell-O.  He didn’t remember a whole lot more.  All the buildings had been shaped like cans, and that was pretty sweet.  

That was then, though.  A long, long time ago – a couple thousand human years, if you asked an Earth C native.  Time weirdness had never been Gamzee’s strong suit, honestly.  He still wasn’t the dude of time, even if he’d gotten himself all swept up in in that shit.  He was part of the time weirdness himself, now.  But maybe it didn’t matter _when_ something happened so much as that it happened at all; maybe it didn’t matter how something came together, so much as why, or whether the punchline stuck.  Whether the imagery shivered your bones into stardust.  Whether your motherfucking screechy skeleton murderbro tried eating that stardust in a cereal bowl with a twirly straw stuck in just as soon as he motherfucking could.  You know.  The fridge and the showdown were _then_ , and now, now there were a bunch of old troll romantic comedies stashed under the seats of Karkat’s fancy Creator-quality ship. 

Gamzee put one on for the flight in, chosen because it had a colorful box and was close to the top of the pile.  Lots of memories of watching the same shit flooded back, though admittedly most of said memories involved trying to stay awake for the whole movie so he’d be able to message Karkat about how much he liked it later.  They'd have been able to chat like bros, then, for a while at least.   The ship smelled like human air fresheners and had a little fridge with apple juice inside – Dave's touches, Gamzee would've bet all the boonbucks he didn't have.   

After a while, though, Gamzee was too busy looking at all the crazy amazing world outside to pay attention to the rom-com he’d been watching, even though the moirail action on screen WAS getting pretty motherfucking steamy.  Earth C looked way different than when he’d seen it last.  The planet below had up and turned itself into a patchwork quilt of varying cultures and worldviews, varying species and apartment design aesthetics, varying everythings.  Sure there were still the Can Towns of the Carapacian Kingdom, now grown into Can Suburbs and bustling Can Metropolises, all wrapped up in a twilight-swirling sky both Prospit gold and Derse dark…  But there was also a wild and growing Consort Kingdom, with rugged land stretching out every which way and resident Creators known for epic duels. The Human Kingdom was full of evenly shaped houses and nicely manicured lawns, with skyscrapers that didn't usually ooze strange liquids or have giant lusii living on their roofs. It was so, so dazzlingly bright.

Still, despite the wonders practically everywhere else, Troll Kingdom would've been Gamzee's home, probably, had his callings been different. He wondered if there were any hives right on a grey beach, staring out at dark water -- he wondered if the motherfuckers living in hives like that got to wade into the ocean, now, without half-expecting to be gutted by marauding seadwellers.

The four new kingdoms brushed and mixed, in places, like ice cream flavors swirled together, like the frenzy that had been the Land of Tents and Mirth, that had been Gamzee's own quest. This was a planet of equals, just as his gods had promised. Crooked troll castles cut the sky like so many claws, right next to a huge hollow tree dripping hungry Consort Kingdom flowers. Human cars were left parked outside residential cans, homes emblazoned with designer soup labels. The roads were chessboard and rocky dirt and carefully paved, both and all, lined with neon signs in Alternian and English and... And some new motherfucking scripts Gamzee didn't recognize.  He was going to get all kinds of lost, if he ended up having to follow signs like that.

Gamzee's eyes flicked back to the intimate “First Shooshing” sequence going on in Karkat's movie; he smiled a little vaguely as the raging, unhinged motherfucker gathered the pieces of herself back together and relaxed with her head limp against her moirail's arm.  Rage, and then release.

 Dave and Karkat's hive might have been difficult to find, if the ship hadn't known where to go. As it stood, Gamzee was just along for the motherfucking ride - it was weird, being a willing passenger again.  That had been most of his life, before the game and its horror-miracles.  It was also pretty weird to see Dave's name written in Alternian on what Gamzee had come to understand was an "ironically domestic" human mailbox out front.  It looked like a cozy motherfucking place, but not so much like where Karkat had always said he would end up.  Wanted to be in the Empress's own forces, that Karkat.  Wanted spires and dungeons and a trophy room with all kinds of heads up on the motherfucking wall. A gory sickle for every day of the sweep!  None of that shit, now.  But there WERE piles of decorated Halloween pumpkins out front and a bowl of candy (human and troll and consort and chess-person friendly, of course, because Karkat was secretly a considerate guy) sitting right by the door.

The Creators' party had been going between venues, between houses, but it seemed a bit of it lingered in troll-land forever. While Calliope and Jade and such ran off busting ghosts or some shit, Nepeta laughed in the lawn with her legs kicked over Equius's lap, narrating something that sounded like a lusus catsona's adventures. Something from back in the olden days, when she used to roleplay with Terezi on the regular, maybe.  

Gamzee made careful not to meet either of their eyes.  Equius had been sent to kill him, to beat him to bubbling purple paste.  Nepeta had hurled herself from the vents to slice him into confetti.  But even so, in the end, Gamzee had been the one wearing their blood.  Gamzee had been the one blamed, the one unforgiven, the one who dreamt about the way they’d looked at him as they died.  He walked by quickly.

As Dave and his original human bros "posed like a team because shit just got spooky," Sollux helped his dancestor, “Mituna” or something, psionically steal more toilet paper from the neighbors for his mummy costume. Both Mituna and Kurloz had come as mummies – it sort of fit with Kurloz's skintight bone suit, really.  Gamzee was pretty motherfucking shocked Kurloz had even showed up.  Hell - he was pretty motherfucking shocked Kurloz had gotten an invitation before him.  Not that he'd ever have said anything. No good dwelling on shit like that, shit like Kurloz with his one screaming, murderous god.

In a way, Gamzee was even surprised Kurloz still existed. They'd created their paradise planet, though, against all odds and blasphemies, and apparently that meant _life_. The impossible life that was the opposite of double-death, that had been the second messiah all along, that meant the dream bubbles could leak into this new world and give everyone a chance at home.  If Terezi could fly among green suns and ghosts in their own shiny new reality, then why couldn't the green suns and ghosts walk among them, too, if they fucking wanted?  Gamzee wasn’t about to complain.    

At any rate.  Yes.  The party was there, in Dave's and Karkat's hive, too, along with most everywhere else... Though Karkat himself didn't seem to be much of anywhere. Gamzee felt underdressed without his enormous Caliborn hood, but Karkat had hated it enough that maybe it was better to have no costume than a shitty one. He'd kept on the bow tie, though. His hair was tangled, and he combed it out just a little with his claws.

The walk to the doorway seemed like it should feel dramatic and long, momentous, because Gamzee had been invited to join the group again.  Whatever the circumstances, that shit could matter. Like Terezi had asked him to join the SGRUB game just because his name was a little like "Game" and not for any other reason.  In reality, though, Gamzee just stumbled up and attempted to knock on the door - it swung open against his fist, and he fell right over some motherfucker he didn't know who was lying on the floor.

"'ScUzE mE, bRo," Gamzee offered, shuffling on and further in. The halls were decorated with dripping fake (?) spider webs, with fairy lights in orange and green.  Pumpkin colors.

"Pfffft," said the stranger.  She scooted herself a little away from the door, though, and that was probably a good thing.  Not every motherfucker would be wearing Gamzee's cloth jester shoes.  Someone with bigass combat boots could just as easily have cracked her poor little bones right up.

There were skeletons hung on the wall, striking flirty, suspiciously anime-ish poses.  A dramatic Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff oil portrait stared down from the dining room wall.  The whole setup was nothing like Gamzee would've expected Karkat's adult hive to look like, when they were wigglers...  And not _only_ because they weren't hurtling through unfriendly space on one of the empress's murder ships or stationed on some mysterious conquered world.  It was kinda nice.

Gamzee had worked his way pretty deep inside the hive and seen a lot of wondrous shit – “Dance Dance Revolution,” for one, and what it looked like when two bubble-blowing newt consorts went "bobbing for apples," for another - when some motherfucker came up behind him like a twofold-blessed ninja and put her little hands over his eyes.  Aradia would be standing on her tiptoes to reach that high, he knew.

"gamzee!  holy crap!  i didn't think you were really coming!"  It was something special, hearing Aradia alive again.  Gamzee'd never been tight with her, really, but she was Tavros’s FLARPing bro.  She'd taken righteous vengeance when Tav had been paralyzed, the way Gamzee sometimes felt he really should've, if he'd been able to think past his own sopor-swaying, his own rattled self.  If he'd _realized_.  For too long, Aradia had been a shell, and yeah that sucked – but now she was a tiny fireball again.  Her smile could put plenty of clowns' to shame.  "does karkat even know?! he said he was gonna go out and meet you."

"AhAhAhA, fOr ReAl?" Gamzee didn't pull Aradia's hands off his eyes, but he did shake his head just the tiniest bit, asking her to let go.  Which she did.  No wonder Tavros had been on Team Charge with this girl, before she got up and murdered, stuffed full of ghosts. "I hAvEn'T mOtHeRfUcKiN sEeN hIm Or LiKe... AnYbOdY wHo'D wAnNa TaLk To Me."

"well, now you have," said Aradia, and she led Gamzee to the kitchen, holding tight to his arm.  She was dressed as some character Gamzee only vaguely recognized - he'd seen the movies, he knew, but so many motherfucking things just got swallowed up by sopor and time.  Aradia told him about how Sollux and Mituna should be back from Getting Supplies, soon, and about how Feferi was letting Latula do her makeup all fancy in the human style bathroom.  She said - real quick, in passing, like - that none of her designs and private adventures had made much sense to anyone else during the game either...  Until she explained them, nice and slow.  Until she revealed her hand, a killusionist getting ready for the next motherfucking trick.

Aradia said, "i've thought about it for a while, and just realized - maybe you didn't know, but i hurt sollux accidentally, over and over.  i got all caught up in what felt right, what i thought i was supposed to do, and people thought i was leaving then behind.  even when i talked about ‘housekeeping’ the universe and clearing out some of the dead souls that weren’t really supposed to still be around?  you know, i don’t think people really _got_ that either!"

"BuT yOu'Re AlL cOoL WiTh SoLlUx NoW," Gamzee offered, quietly.  

“yeah.  yeah, but that’s not what i mean, really.  i mean even though _yes_ dozens of aradiabot versions of me across timelines thought you were a terrifying murderous threat – and you _were_ , before you start giving me those melty barkbeast eyes – maybe i didn’t know the whole story.  maybe i didn’t know how you thought all your ‘honk HONK’-ing in that book would turn out.  what you knew, or were being made to do, or...  you know?  i’ve finally gotten to really think about it.  and i’m not the only one.  you know.  thinking.”

Aradia’s eyes were sharp and knowing – she stared and stared at Gamzee, as if expecting him to click on like a motherfucking lightbulb.  As if expecting his smile to get a little less floppy and sad.  She probably thought she was giving him a tool to make things feel good again.  She thought she was being his bro, like she was a bro to Tavros, to Terezi, to so many motherfuckers.  He wasn't so sure, though.  He knew different versions of Aradia had brought back a book from a doomed reality.  A ruinous timeline where Gamzee’d met his new motherfucking voices, his new motherfucking divine callings, back on Alternia.  He’d slaughtered all his bros, hunting them from hive to hive across their world.   Apparently.  No matter how impossible it felt, no matter how much it hurt to think about.  Your friends were the ones meant to all look out for you – but that Gamzee, _that_ Gamzee had traded his friends for a magic spell, for a code of honks, that had set about something wicked and miraculous.  Had he carried the voices of gods in his head, then, too?  Had Lil Cal been seeing through him, driving him, participating in his own puppet-y creation?  It felt like that had to be true.  

The honk HONK-ing book had helped form Doc Scratch.  And Doc Scratch, in turn, had given way to Lord English, to the prophesies mirthful and raging and fulfilled.  Those Gamzees, those timelines… They’d been part of the sacrifice, right?

Gamzee couldn’t think on that shit long, not at a party, not with Aradia’s hand on his wrist.  He'd been in that fridge a goddamned long time.  He’d seen the book she would have brought back to show everyone what he was going to become.  Scratch had offered passages of it to him.  Cal had whispered it in his ear.  Aradia had tried to give everyone a glimpse of Gamzee when they would be most afraid of him, and she had given Gamzee a glimpse of all his friends’ painted blood.

But then Aradia also gave him a stool along the counter, and some coffin cake bleeding strawberry blood, which was pretty motherfucking different.  Latula and Feferi appeared from the bathroom after a while, all bedazzled as a killusionist's assistants should rightfully be.  Their shoes were even equipped with wheels from Mituna and Latula's own Halloween game night.  They told Gamzee stories – about the Creator Simultaneitivity Jubilee, which was coming up; about what it had been like wandering in as uninvited dancestor ghosts; about what weirdass local governments had sprung up now that there was no almighty empress to boss everybody around.  Latula bragged about her kickin' scores in _Lord English Takeover_ , a controversial new game based around Caliborn.  Feferi gushed over the many never-before-imagined sorts of marine life Earth C had, little fishy miracles she was all about trying to cull.  Non-murdery cull, you know.   _Feferi_ cull.

Gamzee ate his cake, and he laughed a lot, and he wondered if he had any stories those three would actually like.  He wondered why they were being so motherfucking nice to him, anyway.

And then Karkat came storming in, looking like the empress's own drones were right on his tail.  His eyes were red inside, where they'd been grey before.  It was more obvious in person than over Earth-C Chat.  His yellow “Geromy” sweater was stained with nacho cheese, with shaken up soda.   Stained by Dave and his bro's ironic partying, no doubt.  Karkat's hair was ruffled, as it had always been, his skin freckled lightly and looking very soft.  He braced himself against the doorframe and half-yelled, "THERE YOU ARE!  YOU DIDN'T MESSAGE ME YOU'D GOTTEN HERE.  I THOUGHT THE SHIP FUCKING EXPLODED - I THOUGHT YOU SOMEHOW MANAGED TO GET YOURSELF LOST ON ACTUAL AUTOPILOT, I THOUGHT -"

"4h, no," said Latula, before Gamzee could think how to respond.  "h3's b33n ch1ll1ng w1th us.  s4ys h3'll pl4y _lord 3ngl1sh t4k3ov3r_ 4nd t3ll m3 1f 1t's tru3 to l1f3!!!"

"SuRe, SiS," said Gamzee, who couldn't quite drag his eyes away from Karkat's frown, from the fang marks ground in around his lip.  Gamzee willed him to smile, willed it the way he'd wished for miracles, once, the way he'd wished for direction and purpose and belonging.  The way he hoped that his selves who had written honk HONK magic spells all over Aradia’s book had been Lil Cal’s puppets, too.  He’d never actually been to his friends’ hives before.  Not to chill, not for anything good.  It would be motherfucking awful, if he’d gone in his own mind, gone only for murder.  It’d stomp right on his motherfucking heart, just like Caliborn imagined stomping on poor adorable Calliope.     

And finally, Karkat did smile. It was a hesitant, shaky thing, almost the way Gamzee remembered it.  He said, "YOU HAVE SOME STRAWBERRY SHIT ON YOUR FACE."

"Aw, FuCk," said Gamzee.

He could've sworn Latula said "ph3w," then, just quietly, and Feferi laughed a little into her webbed claws.


	3. OtHeR wOrLdS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading~!! I had a lot of fun with this, and I hope it... Works? Ahaha. Anyway, hopefully you had fun too, reading the story.
> 
> Have a great day!!! Thanks!!

Dave and Karkat had a porch out back of their hive, where some lucky motherfuckers had dueled with Silly String recently and a pair of trolls Gamzee didn’t know had been making out until just, like, a minute or two ago.  They hurried away when they saw Karkat coming all scowly and hunched over an angry cup of angry punch… Or maybe it was Gamzee himself that scared them off, a highblood they didn’t know with a Caliborn-bowtie and Subjugglator paint.  Oh, well.  Couldn’t make everybody happy all the time.  Couldn’t not-terrify everybody all the time, either, even if Gamzee definitely wouldn't have wanted to fuck up anyone's night. 

Everything out back was caked with dried silliness, sticky with spilled soda.  There was a picnic blanket that smelled like a stranger’s perfume, but Karkat sat on it like he didn’t give a fuck – so Gamzee sat, too.  Karkat was still stocky and surprisingly quick-footed, he could tell.  Karkat still bit his lip as he was thinking, and he still wore his sweaters baggy enough to stretch over his fingers if he didn’t roll them up a little.  So much was familiar, in that strange place, on that rattling night made for ghosts and human gravestones.  Their neighbors’ lights glowed in greens and purples and warm, warm reds.  All the blood colors lived together on the same streets, here, closer to harmony than either Alternia or pretending, coddling Beforus had ever known. 

Gamzee thought about his chill grey beach, again.  Maybe he wouldn’t live someplace like that, now, if he ever got a motherfucking chance.  He had seen Caliborn’s Masterpiece, though.  Seen himself sliced in two.  Hell, he’d helped move some of the motherfucking clay sculptures around, and kept the camera nice and steady until Caliborn learned how and decided he didn’t need his “classic Honk Friend” any longer.  If Gamzee couldn’t die, what did all that even mean?  Had that vision been from a different timeline, or was it coming, coming, coming?  If it was meant to come true but somehow didn’t, what would that do to the motherfucking… To _everything_?  It was said Gamzee had never died, not in this or any other doomed reality.  It was said he wasn’t anywhere in all the thousands of lingering possibilities, in all the dream bubbles.  He hadn’t been able to ask any other selves if he even _could_ have done shit better. 

For now, Gamzee wasn’t missing any of himself, he didn’t think.  After everything, that _had_ to matter.  He was very aware of how he’d changed, for a moment, even so – his hair still twisted in curls, but longer, now, sharper…  And the scars across his face were faded.  Blurred over with divine-calling clown paint.  Karkat would still notice them, though, and of course he’d remember how Gamzee had scraped Nepeta’s claws across his own skin before taking his clubs to her in the dark.  Gamzee had tasted his own blood, then, tasted how cold it was, fizzing a little and leaving a film of purple all across his eyes.  It felt like another life, yes.  But it wasn’t. 

A breeze toyed with some wind chimes shaped like dancing dogs, shaped like stars and planets.  A gift from Jade, likely as not, Jade who was solid bros with both Dave and Karkat.  Gamzee took a sip of punch – it was all earth fruits and sweetness.  Like wicked elixir without its bite.  He closed his eyes and breathed in the living air of Earth C, so different from the claustrophobia inside his fridge, so different from the grey empty rock where he served as Caliborn’s guide.  He figured he’d just wait a little, for Karkat to speak.  He’d gotten to be really good at waiting, over his sweeps, with all the shit he’d had to wait for.           

“thanks for not trashing my ship,” Karkat said after a while.  His voice was so quiet, so grown up.  Just for the moment.  “i’m assuming you didn’t trash my ship.”

“I dIdN’t,” Gamzee assured him.  “JuSt WaTcHeD tHaT mOvIe WiTh ThE mOiRaIlS aNd ThE rOgUe DrOnE…”

“the one with the frustrated ex-kismesis fling that got way out of hand?  and the drone plot actually stretches back to that one disappearing colony???”

“tHaT’s ThE oNe, BrOtHeR.”

“oh shit.  i love that movie.  the scene in the star-rain, right?  at the front of the ship.”

“i DiDn’T gEt To ThAt PaRt, I dOn’T tHiNk.”

Karkat frowned, his eyebrows bunching together.  His knees were bent against his chest, all folded up and on edge.  He might’ve sat like that with Dave, once, but probably not anymore.  Now, he probably sprawled out, or curled with his head on Dave’s lap.  “it’s near the very beginning of the movie, though.”

“ShIt,” Gamzee looked down at his curly shoes, at his crooked yellow claws.  They needed sharpening, and his hair needed washing, and he could feel Karkat’s eyes all over him like they were trying to decide what to do now, what came next.  As if this was a scene in a movie, or some shit.  “SoRrY.”

“it’s fine,” Karkat said.  Couple motherfucking sweeps ago, he wouldn’t have let up so easily, Gamzee didn’t think.  He wouldn’t have poured Gamzee’s punch first, either, or held the door for a motherfucker like him on the way out to the porch.  “scenes like that don’t happen in real life, i know.  i’ll have to tell you about the most romantic dinners i’ve had, sometime.  _really_ fucking different, when it’s actually… ‘romantic.’”

“wItH dAvE, tHeN?”

Karkat hesitated, unfolding his eyebrows, glancing over his shoulder as if the former “cool kid” human with the unimpressed stare and shiny glasses could have just manifested behind the both of them laughsassin quick.  “with dave, yeah.”

“AhAhA. hE eVeR tElL yOu AbOuT oUr RaP bAtTlE?” 

“only that you were his ‘favorite troll’ for a while.  and that it was the best rap battle in the history of paradox space apparently.”

“iT wAs ThOuGh, MaN.  iT wAs.”  Gamzee found himself smiling, almost eager, again.  His eyelids felt heavy, and the perfumed picnic blanket was soft enough a motherfucker could just sort of lean back and feel himself fading.  It wasn’t a horn pile, but… Good enough.  Part of Gamzee knew he shouldn’t relax.  This wasn’t home, for him.  But even so, there he went, letting his voice get wavery and buddy-buddy again.

“DO YOU WANT MORE CAKE?” Karkat asked, his own voice suddenly abrupt and louder.  Awkward.  “OR.  YOU KNOW.  WE HAVE GAMES. DAVE’S GAMES KIND OF SUCK, BUT TEREZI’S DANCESTOR BROUGHT SOME LESS SHITTY ONES.   WE HAVE HUMAN ALCOHOL TOO, THOUGH I’M HONESTLY NOT SURE YOU SHOULD DRINK ANY OF THAT.”

“I’m FiNe RiGhT mOtHeRfUcKiN hErE,” Gamzee said, offering a broad smile, leaning his head back to look up at the stars.  They were half-hidden by smoke and clouds and the electric glare of a living world, but they were still beautiful.  Somewhere up there, Caliborn was probably finishing decorating his leg with green stones, to make it look like he’d stomped Calliope’s brains in.  Somewhere up there, Gamzee’s clothes were wadded up just outside a makeshift Recuperacoon.  It was hard, keeping enough sopor slime to chase off the nightmares, way up there.  Gamzee felt far away from nightmares, now, far away from the past, from his other selves.  The self that wrote Aradia’s book; the self that became a spider’s plaything and tried to fuck Terezi up; the other selves Gamzee couldn’t know and maybe didn’t really want to.  The other worlds that had held Gamzee and changed him and all that noise.  The worlds that may still come for him.  “tHiS iS a NiCe PlAcE yOu GoT.”

“it’s better when it’s not stained by a million kinds of party foods.”

“yOu CoUlD tElL mE tHoSe DaVe StOrIeS,” Gamzee offered.  There were more questions he could have asked Karkat than there were party foods caked over the furniture, that was for damn sure.  But Gamzee wasn’t gonna ask Karkat too much of anything, that night.  He could have – they were close enough, and Karkat’s eyes were bright and red and listening – but he didn’t.  He _did_ brush the tips of his claws against Karkat’s arm, though, making it look like an accident.  Almost the way Dave used to, though he definitely wasn’t looking for the same things Dave had wanted.  Karkat didn’t jerk his arm away.  He was so warm, in that cold night, and his voice was surprising and gentle. 

Gamzee listened to Karkat relay the snickering details of that time Dave got them lost in some tunnels and accidentally stumbled into a cult sacrificing puppets to the Alpha Kids…  And the time he and Dave ended up giving impromptu speeches at some mysterious humans’ weddings…  And the time Dave bought an ironic suit of armor that was apparently full of baby spider lusii, accidentally unleashing the tiny chirping trolleaters all through the neighborhood.  Gamzee laughed and drank his punch, and didn’t say a word when Karkat silently handed him his own punch next.  Karkat crumpled up Gamzee’s empty cup in his fist and just kept right on ranting about how fucking ridiculous it had been getting some of their neighbors to let them check under their hives for baby spider lusii, preferably _without_ them throwing parties for the Creators or chasing them away brandishing weapons.

After a while, Karkat chuckled to himself – a scratchy, uncomfortable sound, sure, but the sort of honest laughing Gamzee’d been trying to coax out of him for most of their friendship.  He had two crumpled-up punch cups in his hands, by that point, even though Gamzee didn’t think he’d seen him drink anything at all.  “you know, i used to beat myself up about being a shitty leader all the time.  _all the fucking time_.  i hated my past self and my future selves, hated my current self most of all.  but none of this would _exist_ without those selves, without what we did.  the mistakes we made.”  Karkat swooshed his hand across the skyline, swooshed it across all of Earth C, across the ended game, across their unprecedented, unlikely victory.  “i don’t like thinking about all those doomed timelines, about what terezi and john had to undo to make all our bullshit worth anything.  but i’m glad it all happened, or… i’m glad it all ended up how it did.  most of the time.”  Karkat’s eyes were boring their way right into Gamzee’s skull, about then – like daggers from the smooth fists of a circus-bred knife thrower.  “i know i fucked some things up.  i fucked some people over, fucked up our first frog, fucked… you know.  i’ve thought about it a lot, talked with dave, talked with aradia…  i know i could’ve done better, gamzee.  i know i could have listened, or noticed when shit was first starting up, or…”

“Me ToO,” Gamzee said, and then course-corrected.  There were probably a ton of shitty, offensive ways Karkat could take him saying that.  It had been hard to know what accidental fuck up would shut Karkat off, in the old days.  What would get him to back away, or chew Gamzee out, or turn off his husktop all unexpected-like.   “i’Ve ThOuGhT aBoUt WhAt HaPpEneD, i MeAn.  AbOuT wHaT a MiRaClE iT iS wE gOt ThIs FaR…  wE gOt AnYwHeRe At AlL.  aNd I’vE tHoUgHt AbOuT mY oWn MoThErFuCkIn MiStAKeS fOr AcTuAl dAyS iN tHaT fRiDgE.”   

“A MIRACLE – !”  Karkat started, but then swallowed.  “we’re out.  sort of.  that’s what matters.  there’s still jack noir and caliborn and who knows what the fuck else, but…  we’re out.  sort of.”

“sOrT oF,” Gamzee agreed.  He knew a little of _what the fuck else_ , after all.  Still, Karkat looked small, next to him.  He had never seemed so small, before.  Gamzee could’ve scooped him up onto his lap, now, if that sort of pitying shit wouldn’t get him a scythe to the face.  Karkat’s mouth was shaking its way into a tired smile, but the shadows under his eyes were still so deep.  It must have been hell, for Karkat to hate himself so much, and yet to be himself with no way to ever escape.  Gamzee didn’t think he’d be able to scrape the right words together, but of course he wanted to.  The words that would make Karkat’s smile grow nice and solid, the words that would make it stick like a sopor slime pie to the face.

He would try, though.  Hadn’t Gamzee always tried, in the old days?  “YoU wErEn’T aLwAyS a ShItTy LeAdEr, BrO,” he offered.  “sHit.  … i MeAn, sOmEtImEs YoU fUcKeD uP, yEaH, bUt We AlL dId.”

“THANKS?!” 

And that was when Gamzee decided it was time to take a chance, like when he’d invited Tavros over to his hive...  Like when he’d asked him if he wanted to “make out a little.”  Maybe it was because Gamzee’d never really expected to be able to take a chance like this, with Karkat; maybe it was because he was drifting along with his instincts.  Going with what his heart told in him, even if the thing he believed in was fake, made up by a cruel puppet that was at least in a small way his own motherfucking self.  Or worse yet, by a cruel universe, scrapbooked only to string him along.  “YoU mAdE sOmE dEcIsIoNs No OnE eLsE cOuLd HavE mOtHeRfUcKiNg ThOuGhT oF, tOo, ThOuGh.  DoC sCrAtCh hAd ThIs BoOk, RiGhT?  NoT iMpOrTaNt WhAt It WaS…”  There were pieces Karkat didn’t know about this story, Gamzee thought. Pieces that might ruin it.  He hoped his eyes were dull and soft, just then; he hoped his smile was far away and not nearly as nervous as he felt.  Of course the book was full of honk-HONKs and Lord English-to-come.  Of course Gamzee had seen the book because of who he was, and what he was, and where his paths were leading him.

“so some creepy asshole with a white cue ball for a face had a book, but the book wasn’t important.  this is some story, gamzee.”

“hOlD yOuR hOoFbEaStS – tHe GoOd PaRt HaPpEnEd WhEn He LoSt It, AnD iT gOt OuR oWn DeAd EnD  rEaLiTy StUfFeD iN iT lIkE tHe VaSt JoKe’S oWn UnAnSwErAbLe RiDdLeS.  i SaW tHaT BoOk, DuDe.  I _kNoW_ yOu WeRe A hErO tO sOmE pEoPlE.  sO nOt EvErY lEaDeRy ChOiCe FuCkInG sUcKeD.”

Karkat leaned back, and raised his eyebrows way, way up.  He appraised Gamzee again, like he suspected something shifty.  Like he expected all this to just be some dumb joke.  “OKAY LET ME GET THIS FUCKING STRAIGHT.  YOU FOUND A BOOK FULL OF SHIT THAT DIDN’T EVEN HAPPEN ANYMORE, THAT WAS ERASED WHEN JOHN AND TEREZI DID THEIR TIME HOPPING… THING.  THAT DOESN’T MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE AT ALL, GAMZEE.”

“nO, i GuEsS iT kInDa DoEsN’t.”

“AND I WAS A HERO TO SOME PEOPLE?!  LIKE, _NOT_ KNOCKED OUT AND BENCHED FOR, I DON’T KNOW, MAYBE THE ENTIRE BOSS FIGHT?!  NO ONE SAID… ANYTHING ABOUT THAT, I DON’T THINK.”

Gamzee leaned forward over himself, propping his head up on a long-clawed hand.  He closed his eyes.  His voice was small again, and swaying.  It sounded as far away as the stars, as his half-full Recuperacoon back up in Caliborn-space.  It was funny – he’d imagined saying this so often, telling Karkat this story _so often_ , but there was no way it was going to come out as meaningful as it should.  No way he was going to say this shit _right_.  He thought back to that page, to the page where he’d finally been able to look away from his friends’ blood all scrawled in honk-HONKs and see something _else_.  _And the Knight of Blood so embraced the Bard of Rage, and in each other’s arms they were aquiver…_ That’s how it had started.  Gamzee wasn’t sure he understood all of it, but he had thought about the page a lot, in the fridge.   Thought about it while following after Caliborn, as a shadow full of bullet holes.  

Faith wasn’t understanding, exactly, and neither was pity.  “lt LoOkS sOrT oF lIkE yOu TrIeD tO bE mY mOiRaIl wHeN oThEr MoThErFuCkErS wAnTeD mE aLl KiNdS oF dEaD.  cAlMeD mE dOwN, mOtHeRfUcKeR.  gOt tHe OtHeR vOiCe In Me To ChIlL tHe FuCk OuT fOr A wHiLe.”

“it didn’t work, though?” 

Gamzee sighed, a sigh that shook his bones.  “PrObAbLy NoT.  iT mEaNs SoMeThInG tHaT yOu MiGhT hAvE tRiEd ThOuGh.  PaSt KaRkAt DeSeRvEs SoMe, I dUnNo, PrOpS fRoM mE.  fOr ThAt.” 

Behind them, in the house, old friends and near strangers played video games together and put wavery candles in the hearts of gored-out pumpkins, so the shadows danced and stained all around.  Halloween night wore on and on.  The sun would consider coming out soon, but it hadn’t made up its mind just then.  Gamzee flinched when Karkat set a hand on his shoulder, for a second, adjusting himself on the blanket…  But he kept himself very, very still when Karkat rested his head against his arm, next.

“it’s just for a minute,” Karkat muttered, voice so stiff but so quiet, like another riddle.  “i’m tired.  everyone’s had me running around all fucking night.  at least _you_ didn’t want to dance, or hurl bathroom paper at someone’s unsuspecting hive.  and you’re talking like you used to.  before.”  Karkat’s voice got really, really quiet then.  Quieter than lowercase, even.  “and i’m pretty sure you just said i was _your_ hero, in that other dead and irrelevant universe.”

Gamzee waited for Karkat to shake himself awake, to make a face about the smell of his sleeve, to push away from him and back to their usual distance.  But he didn’t, not at first.  Maybe he was actually asleep, passed out after a day of arcane pumpkin-related human rituals.  Gamzee relaxed as completely as he could, letting his arm soften into the right kind of pillow for someone who tried to be a brother’s moirail when no one else would have dared.  Admittedly, only in another universe.  And admittedly, the only actual evidence Gamzee had found of it being a true fact from that universe was pasted on by a mysterious narrator, pasted over crimes of blood and holy longing.  But still.

But…  Still.

Gamzee imagined Karkat slamming all the weapons out of their friends’ hands, all the weapons that would have been pointed right at the clown of the hour and ready to get him nice and dead, if he could die.  Gamzee imagined what it would have taken for Karkat, who had cowered from him just moments before, to offer a motherfucking hug of all things.  Maybe Karkat _hadn’t_ read Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff comics to Gamzee while he was trapped in the fridge.  Maybe he hadn’t known to answer any of the bleeding questions Gamzee held tight inside him, now, or chosen to actually be good to him right away, on Alternia.  Maybe not.  Maybe Caliborn’s Masterpiece was coming for Gamzee, and he’d be dead/not dead someday, and split in half to make a fearsome god.  Maybe.

But that didn’t have to matter, just then.  Gamzee could hold Karkat, there, and he could look up at some motherfucking alien stars.  Karkat’s mutant blood was warm and sweet, but salty-strange, too, almost like a human’s.  Like the ocean.  The ocean had been a forbidden place, for Gamzee, before, full of storms and tempers and danger.  But now, the salt and the warmth and the soft sway of breathing felt right as Karkat leaned into him.   As he wrapped his arms around himself, and Gamzee shifted so he could fold a long arm around Karkat, too, rubbing his shoulder a little to keep out the cold.  As Karkat began to snore.  Just softly, Gamzee would tell him later, over toaster waffles -- though he’d still get glared at a motherfucking ton.  Gamzee would say it was cute, like a meowbeast purring, and the glares would turn into “SHUT THE FUCK UP”-s, and halfhearted swats on the arm.

That would be okay, though.  Actually, maybe all that would feel right, too.  The start of something that could end up motherfucking right. 

It was a new world, after all.   


End file.
